A Rotten Libertarian Sandwich

If one thinks of the politics of Principle as taking a straited path twixt the complete socialism of Communism, and the racist, corporate-state socialist, pseudo-capitalism of Fascism, then one can see why Silverwolf can think of politics as a rotten Libertarian sandwich, with the healthy political and economic truths of Praxeology interlarded between the twin slices of rotten despotism. Libertarianism has been tainted on the left by trying to associate it with Fascism or Nazism, the “far-right”, but this is an outrageous contamination by association of terms. The “old right” might be characterized by Jefferson, Madison, Paine, Burke, and Lord Acton. And since these old Liberals thought in terms of the “Rights of Man” these Rights appertained to every single Human Being irregardless, in that quaint American phrase from the 50s, of “race, color, or creed”. Libertarianism is a form of Humanism in that it says that certain Rights belong to all men, including the Right of Self-ownership, which precludes slavery. A Libertarian would probably say that a man has a right to kill someone who tries to actually physically enslave him. Slavery represents the ultimate in theft of property rights, save for murder. Spartacus’ rebellion against the Roman Miscreants would probably garner applause from a Rothbard or Mises. Probably with Camus also, who refused to be ideologically forced into the left.

And Libertarianism has been tainted on the right by the charges of the ignorant that it stood for “libertinism”, or was the hangout of potheads who just wanted to get it legalized, or of gun nuts of the Far-Right and the Klan, who just wanted to hang on to their personal arsenals. ” (gutteral) chhHippies of the (gutteral) chhRight” Ayn Rand would once describe the Libertarians in her thick Russian accent. And the concept of a bunch of intellectual crackpots, who hold an annual convention every four years, and run a weird candidate, who just ekes out the Green Party candidate, and so retains the Libertarian’s claim on the third biggest party in America, has stuck with the public. Ron Paul’s 1-2% popularity status for quite a few months in the early presidential campaign, before he got up to the 15-20% scores later on, might be because of the public’s vague memory that he once ran for the post as a Libertarian. The idea that this party essentially espouses the Thomas Jefferson line on government is completely missed by the general public.

And, also, Libertarianism is a Humanism in its Ghandiesque insistence that no one has the right to use aggression, or initiate force, against another’s property rights. This non-aggression principle is another key element of Libertarianism that makes it completely incompatible with either Communism or Nazism. And because it believes in the non-aggression principle, and because it can see objectively from the ever-recurring course of history that State Power has been historically the most coercive force, it sees clearly the necessity for a minimalist government, non-intrusive in our privacy, which is faithfully committed to protecting the Rights of the Individual, and vigorously pursues prosecution of any malefactor who dares to violate the non-aggression principle.

And finally, Libertarianism is a Humanism because it places the Individual, and not the State, at the apogee of its value system. The Rights and the life of the Individual are the sacred goals to which Libertarianism marries itself, not the worship of a State, a flag, a religion, or a “leader”. In a world which does the exact opposite, be it in America, totalitarian China, Fascist Saudi, or Islamofascist Sudan, the Libertarian principle is the only one that maintains the integrity of the Individual. The world wants to crush the Individual; look at the tax laws written by the State worshippers, which are designed to crush any Individual economic power, no matter how hard one works and saves. And by crushing the Individual, the major countries of the world will kill the very engine that provides the wealth for all these looters. That is the process that is continuing apace throughout the world, as Communism and Fascism, the two rotten pieces of bread, mew up the healthy core of Human Freedom between their stench-filled slices.

In a world that says throw away the filling and just eat the rotten bread, Libertarians may well respond, “Fascisti, you can keep your bread, while we will feast on Human Freedom.”